Notes from soggy bottom

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Synchronicity

Wow... on the same day that I posted my explanation of why I was no longer going to be blogging about Ivorybills, Ivorybill Skeptic Tom Nelson announced that he too was moving on from the stagnant Ivorybill Debate and refocusing his blog on other matters. I hadn't checked his blog in months, so I just discovered this coincidence today. I've got no reason at all to think that his decision had a damn thing to do with mine; it seems that he and I just finally reached agreement on one major point on the same day. Spooky, huh?

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Silent Autumn?

I've noticed dramatic shortages of some bird species this autumn. Specifically, at my place these ordinarily common species were way down in September 2007 in comparison to past years (based on birds seen or heard/hr of ordinary birding):

Also, Eastern Meadowlarks are virtually absent from the entire county now. They are not normally regular at my farm, but they are usually numerous at several spots in the area. In recent weeks I have not seen a single one.

Are other people seeing similar trends elsewhere? Is this a local, statewide, or regional phenomenon? One could blame it on the boring weather not leading to migrant pileups, but that is pretty normal for September here and would have affected most previous years too (this is my 6th autumn here). It has gotten too late in the season to continue hoping that the big waves are just delayed and will show up eventually. It could be that the drought and freeze have left our local habitats so scarce on food that the migrants that do stop here leave the next night rather than sticking around; this would lower apparent abundances even if the total number passing through were the same. Or... worst case, it could indicate some massive nesting failures of woodland species to our north. For the most part, my tallies of local woodland and oldfield nesters are similar to previous years, in spite of the extreme weather. What are other people seeing?

The few species that were dramatically higher this September than previous years: